I remember the first time I had hot apple cider.  It was spiced, of course and had been steeping in a crock pot all day.  I was in high school and in the marching band.  I can’t remember if we had just finished a parade or the last football game of the season, but we were frozen by the time we got to my friend’s house.  My friend’s mother offered all of us some of the hot cider and we all took it with great joy.  We all took one big gulp, grimaced, and tried to put our cups down without my friend’s mother noticing that we were not drinking the cider.  Apparently it had been steeping all day with lemon and orange rinds and went terribly bitter.  It took me a long time to drink apple cider again.  When I did, it was served straight up and cold and boy oh boy was it good.

I’ve had hot spiced cider since then that was prepared the right way and have rather enjoyed it, but I kept hearing about buttered cider.  Quite honestly, putting a bunch of butter in apple cider sounded disgusting to me and I avoided trying it.  Of course, I made myself suck it up and try a recipe that has been catching my eye in my favorite holiday cookbook.  People.  PEOPLE.  LISTEN TO ME.  I’m glad I tried it.

Hot Buttered Cider

Favorite Brand Name Old Fashioned Holiday Recipes Cookbook 2004

1/3 cup packed brown sugar

1/4 cup butter or margarine, softened

1/4 cup honey

1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Apple cider or juice

Basically what you’re going to do is whip the butter up with all the rest of the ingredients minus the apple cider and make a sweet butter out of it.  Put it in an airtight container and refrigerate.  When you’re ready to use it, let it come to room temperature.  Heat up some apple cider and put it in your drinking mugs.  Put a plop of the butter in the hot cider and stir.  You want to add 1 Tablespoon of the butter for every cup of cider.

I had a “DAYUM! THAT’S GOOD!” moment when I first tasted this.  You know how spiced cider can sometimes have a little bit of a bite to it?  Well the butter smooths that bite out.  This drink slips right down.  It’s spiced, sweet, and delicious.  To be honest, you can’t taste the butter.  It’s just a smooth and yummy sweet spiced cider.  Luckily this recipe makes 12 servings so I still have a few mugs of this wonderful libation from the batch that I made.

Please try it and really, you should buy that cookbook I keep linking to.  Every holiday season I link to it because I love it so much.  Give it a whirl!  It’s not the current hot cookbook and it wasn’t written by a celerity chef.  It’s a hokey cookbook put out by Nestle, I believe, but the recipes inside are so damned good.  (No, I’m not being paid or compensated in any way to push this cookbook off on you.  I’m doing it for the sheer joy of annoying you!)

Enjoy!